RUX

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,800 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 30 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Destroying the Box: Experience Design Inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright

“When we said we wanted a house at Bear Creek,” client Lillian Kaufmann said to Frank Lloyd Wright, “we didn’t imagine you would build it ON the creek!”
To which Wright replied, “In time you’d grow tired of the sight of creek…but you’ll never grow tired of the sound.”
And he was right. Fallingwater stands as the most recognized house in architecture. yet it’s not just a landmark…it was a home. The Kaufmanns’ loved it.
Similarly, owners of other Wright-designed buildings may have struggled with the architect, the implementation may have had flaws, the builders and other constructors may have gone behind Wright’s back to fix perceived design flaws… but they all loved the buildings. The architect’s vision remains inspiration to this day.
This presentation looks at three Wright landmarks— Fallingwater in Ohiopyle, the Pope-Leighy house in Alexandria, and Taliesin West in Phoenix— and the experience architecture inspiration they hold for experience designers.
I also believe that, through Wright’s examples, we can learn elements that take our approaches to experience architecture to newly useful and inspiring levels for our clients and the users of our work.
During this presentation, we’ll take a look at pictures and principles from these three sites. We will explore analogs to our practice through these elements:
• Context: How does the site selection integrate with user needs and desires?
• Clients: What do Wright’s relationships with his clients teach us? Where did he innovate, and where did he fail?
• Connection: How does the architect connect the lives of the clients with the results of the design? Expect an interactive, question-and-answer format. And lots of pictures.

Presented by Joe Sokohl of Regular Joe Consulting

When: Wednesday, October 26, 6-8pm

Where: Snagajob
4880 Cox Rd, Ste 200
Glen Allen, VA 23060

Hope to see you there!

Join us as Wren Lanier gives us a sneak peek of her edUi Conference presentation, Sophisticated Web Design:

What makes a great design better than a good design? How do award-winning sites achieve the polish that sets them apart? This session will review a variety of visual design practices that elevate sites beyond the ordinary. You will leave armed with tools to delight users with a sophisticated style and better user experience on every site that you build.

Time
Wednesday, September 28 · 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Location
INM United
201 West Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23220

Please join the Richmond User Experience group for a special presentation by Jeff Gothelf, Director if User Experience at TheLadders.com.

Lean UX: Getting Out of the Deliverables Business

Traditionally User Experience Design has been a deliverables practice. Wireframes, sitemaps, flow diagrams, content inventories, taxonomies and “The Spec” defined the practice of UX Designers (IxD, UX Design, whatever, etc). While this work has helped define what UX Designers do and the value our work brings to the business, it has also put us in the deliverables business – measured and compensated for the depth and breadth of our deliverables (instead of the quality and success of the experiences we design). Enter Lean UX. Inspired by Lean Product and Agile development theories, Lean UX is the practice of bringing the true nature of our work to light faster, with less emphasis on deliverables and greater focus on the actual experience being designed. This talk will explore how Lean UX manifests in terms of process, communication, documentation and team interaction. In addition, we’ll take a look at how this philosophical shift can take root in any environment from large corporation to interactive agencies to startups.

Jeff Gothelf is a user experience designer based in metro NYC. He has spent his career designing engaging experiences for clients big and small. He is currently the Director of User Experience at TheLadders.com where he helps executive jobseekers and recruiters make meaningful connections with each other. Previously Jeff helped shape the designs of AOL, Webtrends and Fidelity. Jeff publishes his thoughts on his blog (www.jeffgothelf.com/blog) and on Twitter as @jboogie.

Where: Snagajob
4880 Cox Road, Ste 200
Glen Allen, VA 23059

When: Wednesday, August 31
6-8pm, doors open at 5:30

This guest speaker is generously sponsored by Regular Joe Consulting. Refreshments will be provided!

We’re expecting a large turnout, so please rsvp to candace.nicolls@snagajob.com by Monday, August 29. Hope to see you there!